Hi Hopchic,
Okay, let's say you have a viewing area of 720 x 480 pixels, and a background thing happening all the time, some sort of loop or whatnot. Now, you have another asset, a 3" wide x 5" tall photograph, scanned at 300 dpi, which makes the file 900 x 1500 pixels.
Obviously, you can just drop the image on the timeline and tell Premiere to display it using the original proportions and there'll be space on either side. Premiere renders that space in different ways. You
also want to zoom and pan around on the image (say, for example, that it is a map).
Okay, there are two problems for you to solve:
The first is how to zoom and pan around. That's easy -- use "Image Pan". It's really very nice. If you want to do something fancy such as rotation, then it's going to get a little messy. If you use Image Pan and the dimensions of your frame get smaller than 720 x 480, then you're going to see some blurring, simply because Premiere is trying to create information where there is none. Now, your image is 900 pixels by 1500 pixels, which means at the maximum lossless zoom, you can move your little 720 x 480 viewport around quite a bit. The image is about four times what you can cover.
The second problem to solve is what to do when you zoom so far out that you see the edges of the image. Very ugly.
What I recommend is that you rebuild your photo image in the following way: In Photoshop, place it in a largest-size-Premiere-can-handle image (in theory, 4000 x 4000, but in practice, I've found this to be much smaller when there are alpha channels involved). Make an alpha channel. Make the alpha channel black for everything you want that's transparent. Make it white for everything that you want that'll show on the timeline. If you want a feathered edge, then feather the transition. Here's a page that shows how to prepare a file in Photoshop with an alpha channel:
Import that file as you would any other graphic file. Try placing it in the timeline. If it crashes Premiere, then make the file smaller and try re-importing it.
Once it's on the timeline, right-click on it and choose Video >> Transparency. Select alpha-channel and click OK.
Test it out by holding the ALT key down and clicking the ticker over your timeline. Your image should appear, with a transparent background. Use Filters >> Image Pan to move around on it. Use Duration to make it last as long as you like.
Howzzat?
Cheers,
![[monkey] [monkey] [monkey]](/data/assets/smilies/monkey.gif)
Edward
Like Lovecraft? Know Photoshop? Got time for the Unspeakable?